


The Stars Gleam

by burnthepasttotheground



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Angst, F/M, brief mention of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4753019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnthepasttotheground/pseuds/burnthepasttotheground
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it so often did these days, the moonlight drew his attention toward the sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stars Gleam

**Author's Note:**

> This just kind of happened. I hope you like it!
> 
> takes place during the show, while Roger is in Santa Fe

She bent over to straighten the newspaper she was using to cover her legs, wondering how much longer it would be enough to keep her warm at night. It was the beginning of December, after all.

Mimi hadn’t meant to be living on the streets for so long. She’d left rehab after a couple of weeks—something about Roger being all the way in Santa Fe made the prospect of getting clean less appealing—and hadn’t had anywhere to go. If she went home, she was bound to run into Mark, and Benny would surely look there as soon as he found out she’d left the clinic. The only person she might have turned to, Angel, wasn’t there anymore.

So she’d wound up on the street. _Just for a little bit_ , she’d told herself. Until she worked up the strength to go home. She’d just wanted to give her heart time to heal.

But it hadn’t. It’d been weeks now and her heart hadn’t healed one bit. If anything she felt worse—worse about Roger’s leaving, worse about her part in it, worse about her relationship to Benny, worse about Angel, worse about herself. There was too much time to think when you were hiding out alone on the streets.

Having straightened her makeshift blanket over her legs, she tilted her head back to look up at the stars.

***

He stared down at the new old guitar he’d traded in the car for as if willing it to play itself. _Stupid_. He was so stupid. If he couldn’t find his song in New York, what made him think he was gonna find it in Santa Fe?

Roger sighed and got up to leave the dilapidated motel room he almost could no longer afford to live in. Who was he kidding, really? He hadn’t run off to Santa Fe to find his song. He’d run off to escape—escape the cold, escape his grief, escape Mark’s disapproval, escape _Mimi_.

_Well_ , he thought, not reaching for his heavy coat, _at least I escaped some of the cold_. He stepped outside into the night and began one of his aimless walks around the town, searching for inspiration. He wondered if this was how Mark felt. Not many people were out this time of night, and Roger found that the ones who were reminded him of one very specific creature of the night.

Eventually he reached the outskirts of this particular portion of the town and settled himself on a bench in the park. As it so often did these days, the moonlight drew his attention toward the sky.

***

Mimi had always enjoyed the sight of the stars in the night sky. It was part of the reason she loved the nighttime so much. When she was little she used to gaze up at the stars and dream about getting out of her part of town and making it big. In the end, she’d made it out of that part of town, but she’d never become a star. _Not yet_ , she used to think, but the word “yet” was entering her consciousness less and less these days. The only time she didn’t feel trapped was when she was staring at the stars.

She thought about a lot of things when she was gazing up into the sky. Thought about her childhood and how she had at least managed to escape that place, thought about all the nights she’d spent roaming the streets barhopping under these very stars, thought about Angel—about how much she hoped she was up there in the stars watching over them, thought about Roger. At the very least, she knew that they saw the same stars at night. The stars brought her closer to people—friends, lovers—just knowing that they all lived under the same sky.

***

It wasn’t fair. Try as he might, there was no escaping her. He could drive all the way across the country and walk to the most obscure part of town and here he was, staring at the moon, thinking about Mimi. _Seeing_ Mimi. Roger scanned the rest of the sky, trying to find a constellation to distract him from the moon. His mind wandered a bit and he pondered whether he might be looking toward Angel. Or April. The thought filled him with feelings he didn’t want to feel, so he returned his gaze back to the moon.

He sat in the quiet for a few moments, until suddenly he realized that it wasn’t quiet in his mind. He stood quickly, trying to hang on to the song that had unexpectedly sprung to life in his head, but at the same time realizing how unimportant the song really was. He began to pace back toward the motel.

He had to go home.


End file.
